Hi Terry, the answer depends on who you are and what you do with the photos. In our case, we only post already published images, primarily from news sources, under the Fair Use Act.
U.S. copyright law (U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107) provides for using this imagery for analysis and critique and to advance the understanding of political, media, and cultural issues. In 2004 (at the dawn of the blogosphere), we hired a top copyright lawyer working with media orgs to issue a finding to establish our rights. Our non-profit status and media and visual literacy mission have also helped.
Thanks, Michael. I don’t have your lawyered credentials. Am a writer on Substack with a small number of free subscribers. An individual not a business. Don’t need bad trouble. Good trouble is OK.
Kudos for featuring the effects of photo presentation. Particularly striking is the staging of the CECOT prisoners. A display of overcrowded, tattooed, caged bodies, and the gentle lady showing what could happen to you. Meanwhile, don’t notice that men in masks, plain clothes, and unmarked cars are overpowering uncharged, non-violent individuals to take them to secret sites, maybe this one, on behalf of our democratic republic.
Considering how optics-obsessed trump is, it makes a lot of sense to USE THAT as a weapon. For nothing more than simply showing truth juxtaposed with carefully curated imagery.
This lens (forgive the unintentional pun) into the invisible work of propaganda via dedicated messaging through photographs is wild, and powerful. But it can also be turned on it’s head in a flash. (Sorry, the puns are just there!)
I wouldn’t say the puns are an accident. What Trump hears and says, twisting words into thought bombs, is as weaponized as what he sees.
More importantly, I so appreciate your point that the subterfuge is there to see. It’s no accident how often I refer to the tension between the photograph and the Trump/GOP narrative. Conditioning how we think has everything to do with how we look. With all things MAGA, it helps me to always keep the abuser’s threat in mind: “are you going to believe me, or your own eyes?”
Thank you for putting together these images and for your smart explications. We need more like this.
Thank you for preserving the now for the future… in such viscerally moving and connected images.
I appreciate it, Sara. For more reality, stay tuned!
Those pictures of Noem in front of the prisoners makes me physically ill. She is the face of Trump’s gestapo.
F off
I especially appreciate the diploma tearing one/photo.
Pictures don’t lie. What a gallery of dystopian proportions.
With AI they certainly can lie.
I agree
Are these photos copyright free to us?
Hi Terry, the answer depends on who you are and what you do with the photos. In our case, we only post already published images, primarily from news sources, under the Fair Use Act.
U.S. copyright law (U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107) provides for using this imagery for analysis and critique and to advance the understanding of political, media, and cultural issues. In 2004 (at the dawn of the blogosphere), we hired a top copyright lawyer working with media orgs to issue a finding to establish our rights. Our non-profit status and media and visual literacy mission have also helped.
Thanks, Michael. I don’t have your lawyered credentials. Am a writer on Substack with a small number of free subscribers. An individual not a business. Don’t need bad trouble. Good trouble is OK.
Kudos for featuring the effects of photo presentation. Particularly striking is the staging of the CECOT prisoners. A display of overcrowded, tattooed, caged bodies, and the gentle lady showing what could happen to you. Meanwhile, don’t notice that men in masks, plain clothes, and unmarked cars are overpowering uncharged, non-violent individuals to take them to secret sites, maybe this one, on behalf of our democratic republic.
Thank you.
I'm still chilled by the fact that the administration turned Noem's warning in front of that cell into a national TV ad.
I really appreciated this post.
Considering how optics-obsessed trump is, it makes a lot of sense to USE THAT as a weapon. For nothing more than simply showing truth juxtaposed with carefully curated imagery.
This lens (forgive the unintentional pun) into the invisible work of propaganda via dedicated messaging through photographs is wild, and powerful. But it can also be turned on it’s head in a flash. (Sorry, the puns are just there!)
I wouldn’t say the puns are an accident. What Trump hears and says, twisting words into thought bombs, is as weaponized as what he sees.
More importantly, I so appreciate your point that the subterfuge is there to see. It’s no accident how often I refer to the tension between the photograph and the Trump/GOP narrative. Conditioning how we think has everything to do with how we look. With all things MAGA, it helps me to always keep the abuser’s threat in mind: “are you going to believe me, or your own eyes?”